Title

Author

Date of Award

1995

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Price, Trevor,

Keywords

Political Science, General.

Rights

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Abstract

The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, the CCME, is an intergovernmental organization devoted to promoting the harmonization of federal-provincial environmental policies and regulations. The CCME is one of many institutional responses to the growing public concern over the environment. The importance of the CCME in the Canadian environmental policy community has risen and fallen in parallel with the importance of the environment as a public policy agenda issue. The CCME, after a decline in the 1970's, experienced a renaissance in importance after 1988. Since then, the Council has been involved in many environmental policy initiatives ranging from the management of waste to harmonizing environmental assessment regimes. Many CCME initiatives, however, have been heavily influenced by an institutional tendency to place a strong prerequisite on intergovernmental cooperation. Maintaining collegial and cooperative relations has, on occasion, impeded the CCME's other objective of promoting sustainable development across Canada. In some cases, the CCME has either ignored or limited its action in certain spheres of environmental policy. In other cases, CCME policies have produced strictly voluntary sets of guidelines and codes of practice; guidelines that are usually unenforceable and infrequently monitored. In retrospect, the success of the CCME is still debateable. The CCME, overall, is still unequipped to prevent the general retreat of government from important sustainable development principles. While the importance of the CCME as an actor in the Canadian environmental policy community seems assured for the time being, and is likely to be expanded, the furthering of many sustainable development and environmental protection policies is much less certain.Dept. of History, Philosophy, and Political Science. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1995 .H545. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 34-02, page: 0590. Adviser: Trevor Price. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1995.

Recommended Citation

Hillyard, Dwight S., "From tomorrow to today: The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment and Canadian environmental policy." (1995). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2167.
http://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/2167